Britain binge drinking at crisis level,say experts

Health: Binge drinking costs National Health Service 2.7 billion a year; liver disease increased by 25 in last decade

The girls slumped in wheelchairs look barely conscious,their blond heads lolling above the plastic vomit bags tied like bibs around their necks.

Its an hour to midnight on Friday,and the two girls,who look no older than 18,are being wheeled from an ambulance to a clinic set up discreetly in a dark alley in Londons Soho entertainment district.

Theyre the first of many to be picked up on this night by the ambulance,known as a booze bus, and carried to the clinic,both government services dedicated to keeping drunk people out of trouble,and out of emergency rooms.

Binge drinking has reached crisis levels in Britain,health experts say,costing the cash-strapped National Health Service 2.7 billion a year,including the cost of hospital admissions related to booze-fuelled violence and longer-term health problems. Unlike all other major health threats,liver disease is on the rise in Britain,increasing by 25 percent in the last decade and causing a record level of deaths,according to recent government figures.

Doctors believe rising obesity is combining with heavy drinking to fuel the spike in liver disease,which is hitting more young people than ever.

Undoubtedly professionals are seeing more patients in their late-20s to mid-30s,which would have been unusual 20 years ago, said Chris Day,a liver disease specialist at Newcastle University.

On the streets of Soho,most people are too busy drinking to notice passed-out partyers. The streets,lined with pubs and nightclubs,are just beginning to get rowdy: Men chasing each other and shrieking like teenagers; women stumbling and falling over in their too-short skirts and high heels. We are the whites,we are we are the whites! one clearly intoxicated young man was heard relentlessly singing on a train carriage on a recent night,urging wary strangers to join in. The problem isnt confined to a particular class. In 2000,the teenage son of then Prime Minister Tony Blair was arrested for being drunk and incapable when he was found semiconscious and vomiting in Leicester Square. The event was remarkable only because of his fathers prominence.

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The legal drinking age in Britain is 18,compared to 21 in the US,but many drinkers start younger. Social workers say lax control of retail sales and cheap alcohol,available for less than 70 pence a can,makes it easy for young people to experiment with liquor.